1. Facebook Places: The big buzz in the social media world these past two weeks has been Facebook’s recent launch of Places – a geo-location platform that allows users to share not just what they’re up to, but where they are. The launch has caused a quite a stir, particularly because it directly competes with the current geo-location favorite, Foursquare.
Similar to Foursquare, Facebook is giving brick and mortar businesses an opportunity to create a Page to which users can “check in” with friend. Afterwards, they will appear in a “Here Now” list of friends with others nearby who are also checked in.
While currently available only via select mobile devices, Facebook Places is already gaining a lot of attention from brands, but it still remains to be seen how the geo-location war will play out.
2. Page Updates
Say bye-bye to that awkward Boxes tab! This change, among others, was made “to simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable (Facebook) to build the next generation of tools for growing your business,” as stated on the Facebook Blog.
Additionally, it should be noted that Facebook has gone ahead and decreased Application Tabs to a width of 520 pixels. If you haven’t taken a look at your Page recently, it would be smart to make sure that your page is displaying as beautifully as possible.
3. Insights
In June, Facebook rolled out a series of improvements to their Page analytics tracking, known as Insights. The new Insights dashboard in the best way to get a quick snapshot of what’s happening, not only on your business’s Facebook Page, but also on branded Applications, and websites that include Open Graph social plug-ins.
The new Insights dashboard has fresh visualization tools that offer more precise interaction metrics and allow for easy saving and printing (a frequent problem with the previous version).
The most exciting update is for those who have integrated Facebook’s Open Graph protocol on their sites. Now there is the option to track Facebook engagements even if they don’t happen directly on Facebook.
More details available on the Facebook Developer’s Blog.
4. Localized Tabs
The localized tab is great news for global brands! While the opportunity to develop an Application Tab with content for viewers from across the world has been possible for some time, Facebook is now allowing IP location detection so that users can be automatically taken to the country and language of their choice.
5. Facebook Notes improvements
If you’re the type of brand that makes use of Facebook Notes, then you are in luck. Facebook has greatly improved on their Notes functionality; allowing improved formatting options, tagging, and links to other relevant Notes.
6. Facebook Questions
Facebook has begun rolling out a new product, Facebook Questions, that allows anyone to pose a question to the entire Facebook community. While questions may range from “Where is the best burger in New York?” to “How do I get a job in fashion PR?”, the answers will come from the collective knowledge of Facebook users globally. To help questions get in front of the most relevant people, they can be tagged and searched by topic.
So what’s in it for a brand? Well, to be honest, it’s unclear at the moment. As Mashable learned, “Facebook Questions is not an advertising product. While brands with Facebook Pages will eventually be able to answer questions, it’s not meant to be a promotional platform; it’s meant to be a useful and insightful product for users.”
However, it is definitely something to keep an eye on in the coming months…
Photo Credits: Facebook
